I’ll get it nice and bright in here so I can watch the life bleed from my enemies’ eyes.
They hurt Kaiser. It’s time to make them pay.
36
Kaiser
When I come too, I’m face down in a pile of rubble.
These fuckers brought a rocket launcher. What do they think they’re going to do? Destroy the house until only the safe room is standing? I wipe dust from my face and crawl out from under the destroyed wall. Gotta get to Bella.
But when I get to the safe room, the door is standing open. No! Where could she have gotten to?
I weave through the rooms, grit crunching underneath my boots. I stop and snatch up a fallen gun. There’s no time to mess around.
“What the fuck is going on?” someone shouts. I hide out of sight, barely breathing as I listen.
“Sir,” the soldiers snap to attention. “We’re tasked with hunting down the target, Bell?—”
“The bitch. I know. And you fucked it up. Dad sent me. I’m supposed to be in New Rome, making the Poisoner choke on his own vomit.”
New Rome? Dominus must have sent another strike team to take out the Poisoner. I hope Argos still has ears here. Otherwise, I need to end this fight fast so I can alert my brothers that the Poisoner needs help.
They probably already know. If I were Dominus, I would’ve had the strike team hit two locations at the same time.
This newcomer is either Sal or Frankie, one of Dominus’ sons. “You’re telling me that it takes all of you to get one little girl?”
“She has a bodyguard.”
“A bodyguard. One man? One fucking man? Fucking Fraternitas. Where is she?”
“The target is in the safe room?—”
Music crackles on the loudspeakers, and the loud music Bella likes to play for her plants blasts through the house.
“What the fuck is that?”
“Sir, I believe it’s from Turandot, an opera by Puccini?—”
“I fucking know! My nonno loved this shit. I wanna know why I’ve suddenly got front row seats to a fucking opera.”
“It’s coming from the conservatory. Behind the house.” A radio squawks, and the man reports. “It’s the girl.”
“Right, let’s go get her. Remember, we want her alive.”
The team lead orders the forces to split into two teams, one to go through the house, one to go around back. “We secure the safe room along the way. Let’s go.”
Bella isn’t in the safe room. I bet she’s in her greenhouse, thinking her plants will save her.
But there are dozens of men headed her way. I can’t let them take her. But I don’t know how I’m going to kill them all without starting a firefight that kills us both.
* * *
Bella
“Nessun dorma” blasts from the speakers as I stand in the middle of my plants, spotlit by the floodlights. I’m still in my ball gown, so I’m feeling classy.
There’s movement outside the greenhouse, men approaching the back door behind me. And in front of me, there are muffled voices at the kitchen entrance. I’m surrounded. Just like I planned.
